Once again, John Lennox has been present at the ELF – and he has been talking about (and showing a video of) the debate he had last October with Richard Dawkins in Birmingham, Alabama (see Quaerentia passim – but esp here) – what was interesting was that the format was agreed by both men – but the frustration they both felt with it was caused by the fact that the radio broadcasters were pressurizing them time-wise. That certainly explains the sense of it being truncated at the end.

Despite the fact Richard Dawkins & John Lennox have both worked in Oxford for years, they had never met before. But since the debate, they have seemed happy to work together again. So they havemet subsequently and recorded an hour-long follow-up conversation. This will soon be broadcast on the radio and then available on the internet. Watch this space – as soon as i know, I’ll post a link.

Then this coming October 16th, they will meet in Oxford – on one night the film of the debate will be shown, and then the next night, the two will meet in Oxford’s Universe Museum of Natural History to discuss and debate further. This is quite a deliberate and poignant move – for this was the location for the famous 1860 evolution debate between ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’ Thomas Huxley and the Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce. Again, no doubt this will be broadcast and available. Watch this space.

STOP PRESS

In August this year, at the Edinburgh Literary Festival, John will be debating Christopher Hitchens on something on the lines of “The New Europe is better off with the New Atheism”.